Peacekeeping Is a Putin Trap, Kallas Warns

BRUSSELS – Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas warned in an interview with Euractiv that Europe’s discussion over a possible peacekeeping force in Ukraine risks playing into a “Russian trap”.

Just one day after an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris, Kallas cautioned that attempts to find a coalition for a peacekeeping mission was premature, as the Russians “don’t want peace, there is no peace.”

Before those discussions, she said, Europe’s focus should be on putting Ukraine in a position where they are “able to say no to a bad deal”, and that “the stronger they are on the battlefield, the stronger they are behind the negotiation table.”

What follows is an edited transcript.

What are your takeaways from how the American ‘shock therapy’ has been developing since last Wednesday? It’s clear that Europe is not at the table in the US-Russia talks in Riyadh...

KALLAS: Of course, the Americans can meet with whomever they wish to, but for any peace deal regarding Ukraine to work, it has to involve the Europeans as well as the Ukrainians.

What options do we have if Trump refuses to include Europeans in the talks, even at a later stage, as his Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg has suggested?

KALLAS: If some deal is agreed that we don’t agree to, then it will just fail, because it will not be implemented.

Washington seems to have drawn its red lines last week; what should Europe’s red lines be when it comes to security guarantees for Ukraine specifically?

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KALLAS: They walked back from the red lines, because of the reaction they received. It is important that before the negotiations have even started, you don’t give away all the main asks that Russia has.

Otherwise, Russia’s aggression really pays off: not only have they occupied some territory – so they have additional territory and mineral resources – but then on top of this, they get all these promises from the other side as well. I don’t think it’s a good negotiation tactic, nor is it strong.

We have, from our side, put in place conditions that need to be there. But first, we really need to put pressure on Russia – that is the first element here.

Right now, if you also look at the images from Saudi Arabia, the Russians are the winners. Their posture is: ‘Everybody is coming to us now and offering us what we want’. Let’s not walk into the Russian traps.

What assurances have you received from the American side that the peace talks will not include any broader restructuring of Europe’s security architecture? The Russians will undoubtedly try to go in that direction...

KALLAS: We had meetings with a lot of Americans, and, in general, we got different messages, even from the same people, in different meetings. How to understand it all is, of course, a question. What they are saying to us in the meetings is that they will not agree on anything like this.

As there are many interlocutors on the American side, we need to accommodate ourselves to the new ways of working with the new administration to understand all the messages. The Americans assured us in every meeting that they were committed to Europe and working together. They’re committed to NATO and understand the security concerns of Europe.

It is clear that Europeans will be the ones asked to secure any kind of future deal, but the Paris summit has not produced concrete plans. How fast can we come up with a plan? And why didn’t we have one in place in the first place?

KALLAS: Again, if we are talking about peacekeepers, then we are walking into the Russian trap because they don’t want peace; there is no peace. If you read the comments of the Russians, they were quite happy; they had already won everything.

First, we have to put pressure on Putin so he wants to move towards peace.

The Ukrainians say presence for the sake of presence is not feasible. Under what mandate could such a force work?

KALLAS: If the discussion comes to this, then we can discuss it, but we are not at this point. Right now, we should focus our strength on supporting Ukraine and the stronger they are on the battlefield, the stronger they are behind the negotiation table. We should put Ukraine in a position [of strength] where they are able to say no to a bad deal.

Arguably, we had three years to do that, to put them in a ‘position of strength’?

KALLAS: You can’t imagine how frustrated I am that this is three years now. Yesterday someone was telling me, “but the defence industry needs time”. I mean, they have had time. They have had time for three years when the war has been a full-scale war.

It’s not only a question of the sovereignty of Ukraine. It’s a question of our sovereignty, of the global world as we know it, where might does not make a right.

Yes, we have had a lot of time, but on the positive side, I remember the shock of 24 February 2022 when things started to happen. I feel that now we are in the same position. I am relatively optimistic that we will get our act together.

But do you see the danger that now that peace talks have officially started and there is a perspective of the war ending, the urgency will disappear?

KALLAS: In many societies, there is this will to pack things up, and go back to business as usual. We also have to understand that any kind of bad deal is just a deal for Russia to regroup and attack again.

With every hesitation, the price just goes up. Making investments in defence right now requires painful decisions from all societies, but not making them would come at a higher cost later.

If we draw the parallels with history, then we are in the situation of 1938. The difference now is that, unlike Czechoslovakia, Ukraine has now decided to fight. The only ask for us is to reallocate our resources and help them to defend themselves so there will be no Second World War. I don’t know how to convey this to the public of different member states.

What will you do if the US lifts sanctions? It seems that this could be part of the mix at some point. What do we do then?

KALLAS: It is not wise to give up the strong card that we have in our hands. Why do the Russians want the lifting of sanctions? Because they hurt them and they want to go back to business as usual. This is the strong card that we have in our hands, and we shouldn’t give it away.

We shouldn’t underestimate our own power because what we see is that their economy is in a very bad situation: Their national fund is almost completely depleted, and their national bank interest rate is over 20%, which is, by the way, worse than Haiti’s. They can’t raise capital outside because of the [Western] sanctions. They don’t get the same revenues from oil and gas that they used to, and their employment market is in a really bad place.

They want us to believe that they are the strong ones here, but actually, it is not true, and we should not walk into that trap.